A year after President Donald Trump announced his tariffs on Canada, exports of American liquors — like Kentucky bourbon — to the north have dropped by more than 60 percent.
In March 2025, Trump announced 35 percent tariffs on Canada. Despite ongoing legal challenges to his authority to do so — the Supreme Court ruled last month that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not allow him to implement his wide-ranging tariffs — the president has remained faithful to his tariff strategy.
But Canada did not take the tariffs lying down. Canada imposed its own 25 percent tariff on all U.S. alcoholic beverage products shipped to the nation. That tariff was lifted in August, but that has done little to restore consumers' willingness to buy American.
Shortly after the tariffs were announced, many Canadian retailers pulled American items entirely. Only two provinces — Alberta and Saskatchewan — have American spirits on offer as of this report, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS).
In the year since Trump announced his tariffs, Canadian imports of American whiskey — including bourbon — plunged from $203 million in 2024 to $60 million in 2025 between March and December, according to DISCUS data.
Full year exports from the U.S. to Canada in 2025 were down by nearly 63 percent. Meanwhile, American spirit imports of from Canada increased by nearly 11 percent, representing $691 million worth of products.
"One year after U.S. spirits were removed from retail shelves across Canadian provinces, the damage to American distillers is unmistakable," Chris Swoner, the president and CEO of DISCUS, told the Louisville Courier Journal. "This policy has caused real and avoidable harm to an industry that has long championed open markets and zero‑for‑zero tariffs with our major trading partners."
He said DISCUS wants to see the nations resume talks that move toward an end to the tariffs.
"We deeply value our Canadian consumers, who have embraced the quality and diversity of American spirits for decades. We urge both governments to come back to the table to restore permanent tariff-free trade and restore Canadian consumers’ access to these iconic American spirits," he told the paper.
Reaching that level of goodwill may take some time. Not only does Trump appear adamant about his tariff plans, but he's also insulted and vaguely threatened Canadians in the meantime.
Around the same time Trump was announcing his tariffs he insinuated that Canada was America's 51st state, and referred to former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the nation's "governor." He has since repeatedly said he wants Canada to become a state of the U.S.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney was elected, he made clear Canada would never be annexed by the U.S.
"America is not Canada, and Canada never, ever will be part of America in any way, shape or form," he said at the time.
Last March, Trump seemed to suggest that Canada's border was just an arbitrary line — despite himself being an anti-immigration hardliner — and teased the idea that a single nation encompassing both the U.S. and Canada would be "most incredible," ABC News reports.
"If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many, many decades ago, and makes no sense," he said at the time. "This would be the most incredible country visually."
He continued, further suggesting he wanted to absorb Canada.
"'O, Canada," the national anthem, I love it. I think it's great. Keep it," he said. "But it'll be for the state, one of our greatest states, maybe our greatest state."
During a talk in Australia this week, Carney shed some light on his ongoing discussions with Trump. He said that Trump is a very different person in private versus his public persona, which allows for the men to "work through things," but he added that "it's not easy, let's be clear," according to CBC News.
He also revealed that Trump did not tip him off to the U.S. and Israel's joint airstrikes on Iran, but said he supports the military action "with regret, because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order."
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